Hollywood could not be where it is today without the skills of a wide variety of people. People of all shapes and colors and sizes, and that includes little people, who you may know as midgets (but don’t say midget, it’s like the N word only don’t say that to black people, it’s offensive). They’ve come a long way since the mass casting of Munchkins in the Wizard of Oz and the orange faced menace of Willy Wonka and his damn factory, let’s see just how far.

Peter Dinklage

Probably the greatest and most recognizable little person actor of them all right now for no other reason than when you watch Peter Dinklage on screen he’s a real person and not a real short person, something that has yet to be accomplished for most little people roles. In fact, as near as I can tell, Peter Dinklage has only played a magical little person one time, in The Chronicles of Narnia. Even in the movie Elf he was cast in a role that was jokingly not an Elf, which is some stunning self awareness.

Dinklage’s strength lies in his ability to cuss like a sailor and sound very important while doing it, which is awesome and a skill my grandma had. He has never been an Oompah Loompah that I know.

Billy Barty

The original little person actor (not true but he was famous before all the rest of these people), Barty was born in the 1920s so he didn’t have a lot of hope to not be cast in a few unfortunate roles. The first time he was cast as a leprechaun was 1952. He also played a dwarf (the magical kind), hobbits, pygmies, children, a troll, an alien and Rumplestilstkin. In fairness he had a ton of regular roles as well and started his career in about a million Mickey Rooney short films which is just great, probably. Or maybe it was. Hell, better than I got.

Wads Billy Barty ever an Oomah Loompah? Not that I know of.

Warwick Davis

No other little person actor gets as much face time without seeing his face as Warwick Davis. And now he even has his own horribly self effacing TV show, so good job. Davis has made a career being every ridiculous critter a tiny person could stand in for like an ewok, a goblin, a talking mouse, a fairy, whatever the hell Prof. Flitwick was, a small robot, another goblin, and of course the leprechaun. Not a leprechaun, the leprechaun. Oh, and Willow. Don’t want to forget that.

Now that he’s been acting since the days of Ewoks, Davis is actually allowed to show his face on camera sometimes and not always behind a layer of latex and crap, but he probably also makes a decent living with that crap since a lot of other actors aren’t doing it. In light of that, someone should cast him as an Oompah Loompa. Take that, Deep Roy.

Danny Woodburn

You may not recognize his name right away but you have to have seen Danny Woodburn in at least one movie, the guy’s everywhere and had a pretty memorable stint on Seinfeld back in the day. Has he played an elf? You damn well bet he has. And he’s also played more than one magical dwarf including one of the seven dwarves in the movie Mirror, Mirror which hopefully you never saw because eh. It’s not great.

Danny Woodburn seems to also not be an Oomah Loompah. Good for you, sir.

Debbie Lee Carrington

Debbie here, (or is it Debbie Lee, I don’t know how to wrangle middle names), the only lady on our list, has also worked on Seinfeld with Danny Woodburn and has played an Ewok with Warwick Davis. She’s also played several aliens, a bigfoot and, oddly enough, more than one bird including a duck and a penguin. But has there ever been an Oompah Loompah? No. And do you know why? Because she also played a machine-gun wielding hooker in Total Recall (which of course was the original Total recall because we will not speak of the remake).